Plato’s allegory of the cave reflects how comfortable we become with our illusions, even when enlightened philosopher’s try to rouse us out of our confusion. But maybe the cave prisoners are happier. Maybe our dream life frees us from the endless juggling of past and future. Although, sometimes I have a nightmare, and am relieved to wake up, even if it means a return to this world of past, present, and future, with all its hardships and joys. So much to ponder…I need another cup of coffee!
Thanks for the comment and thoughts, John. I believe that my curiosity for the world is too great, so I would select a poor, uncomfortable reality that's accurate over a brilliant, comfortable illusion—although of course that's a lot easier to say than to actually do.
I hope you write even more about dreaming. . . you described that sense well, of a timeless present. Dreamers and dreaming is intriguing to me on a variety of levels. You got me thinking about how what we write will change our memory, and I've noticed when writing about my childhood it is as if i take the immediacy of feeling and mold it in a way that only my now older mind can - my thinking and writing of the moment sort of fills it out, like a narrative you said. It IS indeed like waking from a dream and writing about said dream. . . the dream is immediate, it is emotion, it is intense, and yet writing about it distills the power into a coherent meaning. . . it feels less like it removes the magic from the dreamworld and more like it turns it into a helpful tool. I just never would've put writing about dreams in the same category as writing about our pasts, yet there it is - clear as day. Great piece!
You mentioned writing about childhood as an adult—"as if i take the immediacy of feeling and mold it in a way that only my now older mind can"—and I've found this presents a dilemma with vocabulary for me. The words that I want to use aren't the words the child would use, so an accurate description, in a way, seems inaccurate. There's no solution, although the first few pages of A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is perhaps the only time I've seen this problem grappled with in an effective way. Thank you very much for the comment, Trilety.
Oh true true, it would be so hard to access our child voice…I never thought of that, or how traumatic it may be to remember with the limited vocabulary of our child selves ha.
I will note that about A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man!
Plato’s allegory of the cave reflects how comfortable we become with our illusions, even when enlightened philosopher’s try to rouse us out of our confusion. But maybe the cave prisoners are happier. Maybe our dream life frees us from the endless juggling of past and future. Although, sometimes I have a nightmare, and am relieved to wake up, even if it means a return to this world of past, present, and future, with all its hardships and joys. So much to ponder…I need another cup of coffee!
Thanks for the comment and thoughts, John. I believe that my curiosity for the world is too great, so I would select a poor, uncomfortable reality that's accurate over a brilliant, comfortable illusion—although of course that's a lot easier to say than to actually do.
I hope you write even more about dreaming. . . you described that sense well, of a timeless present. Dreamers and dreaming is intriguing to me on a variety of levels. You got me thinking about how what we write will change our memory, and I've noticed when writing about my childhood it is as if i take the immediacy of feeling and mold it in a way that only my now older mind can - my thinking and writing of the moment sort of fills it out, like a narrative you said. It IS indeed like waking from a dream and writing about said dream. . . the dream is immediate, it is emotion, it is intense, and yet writing about it distills the power into a coherent meaning. . . it feels less like it removes the magic from the dreamworld and more like it turns it into a helpful tool. I just never would've put writing about dreams in the same category as writing about our pasts, yet there it is - clear as day. Great piece!
You mentioned writing about childhood as an adult—"as if i take the immediacy of feeling and mold it in a way that only my now older mind can"—and I've found this presents a dilemma with vocabulary for me. The words that I want to use aren't the words the child would use, so an accurate description, in a way, seems inaccurate. There's no solution, although the first few pages of A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is perhaps the only time I've seen this problem grappled with in an effective way. Thank you very much for the comment, Trilety.
Oh true true, it would be so hard to access our child voice…I never thought of that, or how traumatic it may be to remember with the limited vocabulary of our child selves ha.
I will note that about A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man!